REGION: Most of Brown's 2011 judicial appointees are people of color, officials report

A little more than half of the 15 judges Gov. Jerry Brown appointed to California courts in 2011 were people of color, including the first Latina judge in the history of the Riverside County Superior Court, according to data Brown's office released Thursday.

Fifty-three percent (eight of the 15) of the judges appointed during the governor's first year of judicial appointments were black, or of Latino or Asian ethnicity, according to the report.

Forty-seven percent of appointees were white ---- compared with 72 percent of the state's sitting judges in 2011.

One-third of the appointees were women.

The report didn't gives details on appointments in each county. It listed a few high-profile appointments throughout the state, among them Raquel Marquez, the first Latina to take the bench in Riverside County Superior Court.

The governor's report on the ethnicity and gender of judicial appointees is required under a 2006 law aimed at promoting fairness and efficiency in the administration of justice.

The idea is to help people better understand the ethnic and gender diversity ---- or lack thereof ---- of the judicial branch.

The overwhelming majority of judges in the state's courts last year where white men, according to a 2012 report by the Judicial Council of California, Administrative Office of the Courts.

As of Dec. 31, 2011, 69 percent of judges in the state's trial courts were men, and 72 percent were white, according to the report. Nine percent were Latino, 6 percent were black and 6 percent were Asian.

The state's population is far more diverse, according to 2010 U.S. Census data. In 2010, 40 percent of Californians were white non-Latinos, 38 percent were Latino, 13 percent were Asian and 6 percent were black.

The same demographic disparities existed between trial court judges and the general population last year in Riverside County, data showed.

Seventy-six percent of the county's trial court judges were men, and 74 percent where white, according to the report. Twelve percent were Latino, 5 percent were black, and none was Asian.

In 2010, 40 percent of Riverside County's residents were white, 46 percent were Latino, 6 percent were Asian and 6 percent were black.

Researchers have struggled for the better part of a century to identify and understand racial and ethical disparities in criminal sentencing.

Although researchers' conclusions have varied widely, there is much evidence to suggest blacks and Latinos are sentenced more harshly than whites, independent of criminal history or the seriousness of offenses.

What causes the differences in sentencing and whether the disparities are significant enough to explain the over-representation of minorities in U.S. prisons remains unknown and the subject of much debate.

Correction: Gov. Jerry Brown made 15 judicial appointments in 2011. The appointees were chosen from a pool of 768 applicants. An earlier version of this story said, incorrectly, that Brown made 768 appointments. We apologize.